Woman conceived by rape responds to slurs from MSNBC commentator
Attorney Rebecca Kiessling, who is holding a week-long “Conceived in Rape Lecture Series,” responded to a rant by commentator Rachel Maddow against her speaking tour for Personhood Mississippi.
Kiessling said that under the “personhood” ballot or Amendment 26, the term “person” will refer to all humans from the moment of fertilization. She also took exception to Maddow’s use of the phrase, “the rapist’s child.”
In her response to Maddow, Kiesling said, “First of all, I am not the rapist’s child! He doesn’t even know of my existence, as in most rape cases.” She added that those who choose to abort face four times the risk of death within the year.
Kiesling said, “If you truly have compassion for a rape victim, you’d want to protect her from the abortion and not the baby.” She added that being pro-woman “is to recognize that women are much stronger than they are given credit for, and to understand that a baby is not the scary enemy.”
Inconsistency
Kiesling also cited inconsistencies in Maddow’s thinking as the MSNBC commentator is “against the death penalty for rapists, but supports the death penalty for the innocent child who happened to be conceived in rape…she failed to mention that the “Conceived in Rape” tour involved a real human being — and I’m a woman no less.”
Kiesling, who hopes to put a face on the child conceived in rape, said, “My birthmother did not choose life for me. She chose abortion. But pro-life advocates in Michigan chose life for me by making sure abortion was illegal in Michigan, even in cases of rape…I owe my life to them.”
When she was 18 years old, Kiesling searched for her birthmother and in this way, learned that her mother tried to abort her. She adds, “[My] birthmother is proud of me today, has shared her story alongside me, and is so thankful we were both protected from the abortion. I honor her and I bring her healing, which is why she and her husband legally adopted me last fall, 22 years from the day we met.”
In Kiesling’s personal website she said that her personal value is not based on being a “product of rape,” but a “child of God.” She said, “I know that there is no stigma in being adopted. We are told in the New Testament that it is in the spirit of adoption that we are called to be God’s children through Christ our Lord. So He must have thought pretty highly of adoption to use that as a picture of His love for us.”
Not lucky
Kiesling does not believe her survival has to do with luck. Instead, she says she is alive because of choices “that were made by our society at large, people who fought to ensure abortion was illegal in Michigan at the time — even in cases of rape, people who argued to protect my life, and people who voted pro-life. I wasn’t lucky. I was protected.”